Blog - Valor Counseling

What fuels your tank?

You can think of our energy or tolerance for things on a scale. Things can either add to our energy/tolerance or subtract from it. Adding Fuel: Taking a walk Listening to music Positive interactions with friends and/or family Exercise Good sleep Using Fuel: Conflict with friends and/or family Consuming a lot of social media or news Overworking yourself Worrying over things that have not happened Drinking too much Knowing what adds fuel to your tank can be helpful. Spend a minute to consider...

Cognitive Triad

What to feel better? Try using the cognitive triad. The cognitive triad states that thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are all interconnected. This means that my thoughts affect my emotions and behaviors. My emotions affect my behaviors and thoughts. My behaviors affect my emotions and thoughts. Through this idea if you want to feel better you can change your thoughts or you change your behavior. Changing your thoughts can include trying to find a...

Change Your Frame

When we are struggling in a relationship that negativity can shape the way we see our significant other. The internal dialog that you have about your significant other can influence how you perceive them, your emotions towards them, and your interactions. Try and observe how you describe your partner in your mind. If you find yourself with negative thoughts the following exercise can be helpful. It’s easy, quick, and can change...

Choose Health

Stop for a minute… I want to give you a friendly reminder to take care of yourself. Take a moment and choose to do something healthy today for yourself. At least one intentional thing. It does not need to be big, take a long time, or have to be something you are necessarily excited to do. Change can happen in small intentional steps. Here are some ideas if you need...

Listen…

Listening is an extremely important part of any health relationship. How you listen to your partner, or anyone for that matter, can influence connection, conflict, and stress. Here are 4 tips that you can use to help improve your listening skills today. When someone is speaking to you attune to what they are saying. Listen with the goal of understanding and curiosity. Do not listen to defend or criticize. Use...

Black and White Thinking

Black and white thinking is a thinking trap that we all fall for. Commonly referred to as a cognitive distortion. This way of thinking can help us simplify complex problems but comes with a down side. The down side of thinking in black and white is that it limits the options we have when considering our experience. Let me give you three examples. “This year has been completely terrible.” Has this year...

Find The Silver Lining

Our perspective has big impacts on our mental health. Finding the silver lining can be a great way to help ourselves handle difficult situations. Finding the good in the bad will not take away the bad, but it can make it a bit more tolerable. Finding the silver lining can also bring meaning to your suffering. Here are some examples of questions you can ask yourself to help find the...

What are Triggers?

Triggers can be many things. Triggers can be people, places, things, music, emotions, weather, and much more. Tiggers are useful to consider when you want to change a behavior. Knowing your triggers can help in many ways. One way to think about triggers is Triggers lead to | | | V Thoughts. Thoughts lead to | | | V Emotions. Emotions lead to | | | V Behaviors. Knowing your triggers can bring awareness that will help you change your behaviors. You can then anticipate triggers and...

Be Kind to Yourself

We are oftentimes our worst critic. The negative thoughts our mind produces can be a great source of suffering. Our critical mind can be unrelenting and out right vicious at times. If you have an overly self critical mind it can be good practice to learn how to be kind to yourself. Below are some questions/statements I will suggest to clients when they are trying to be more kind to...

Stay With The Facts

No I am not talking about the media or our current political landscape. Staying with the facts is a great way to help calm the mind. When our mind worries it tends to try and tell the future. It does this so we feel we can better prepare ourselves for negative events. Our mind however is not a good fortune teller. Our mind often just tells us worse case scenarios which...

What fuels your tank?

Cognitive Triad

Change Your Frame

Choose Health

Listen…

Black and White Thinking

Find The Silver Lining

What are Triggers?

Be Kind to Yourself

Stay With The Facts

Improve Your Quality of Life

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